Law School in trouble

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by Kizmet, Dec 22, 2016.

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  1. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  2. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

  3. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

  4. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Without mentioning names, can you share some specifics? I'm just curious.
     
  5. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  6. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    It makes sense. If the education doesn't really prepare students for the exam, why are the students paying so much for the education?

    I can even imagine the ABA or state bars making continued accreditation or law schools' recognition for admission to the bar dependent on low-performing schools reducing their tuition by some significant percentage. From the student's perspective, it would mean that what students pay would better correlate with the educations they receive. For schools, it would create a huge incentive to improve their pass-rates. The worst schools would probably just close.

    Law has an advantage that many other subjects don't, in that its graduates typically take standard exams after graduation. That makes it possible to compare and grade schools not only on inputs like admission test scores, funding and administration (the US News-type variables), but on educational effectiveness as well.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 14, 2017
  7. TomE

    TomE New Member

    A for-profit law school having trouble in a state where Duke Law, UNC Law, WF Law, and even Elon Law are located...?!?!

    [​IMG]

    On a lighter note, this quote from the recent article is somewhat comforting for recent and soon-to-be grads:

     
  8. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    In that regard it's interesting that we don't here more about passing rates for people with PhD/PsyD in Psychology. They all have to take licensing exams, no?
     
  9. Tireman 44444

    Tireman 44444 Well-Known Member

    You forgot NCCU Law and Campbell Law.....
     
  10. TomE

    TomE New Member

    Well....no
     
  11. Law school isn't really meant to prepare you for the bar exam. If I had to guess I would say 85-90% of bar passer have taken a bar review course. School is meant to prepare you for the practice of law. The research, writing, litigation, etc....You will be familiar with some of the subjects that you're being tested on but rarely enough to pass by itself. The best thing it does is get you used to testing. Bar passage rate is more of a reflection upon the students they have taken in instead of the program itself. A student that was accepted to Duke Law but decided to go to NCCU doesn't really decrease their bar passage chance much if at all.
     
  12. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    But the ABA sets bar passage as an accreditation standard. If your bar passage rate falls below a certain threshold you can lose ABA accreditation. Aside from the fact that I don't know if the APA imposes such a standard (I would doubt it since there are a good many PhD/PsyD grads who take on work post-graduation that doesn't even require a license) there are many programs that don't have the programmatic accreditation.

    In some countries, law school grads might never practice law. That LLB can act like a business degree. In the U.S., you're investing major money into a JD as well as 7 total years of study. We certainly have a fair number of law school grads not practicing law. But the sense I get is that, absent working as a Managing Director at a place like Goldman, it's not exactly viewed as the preferred career trajectory.

    But with a PhD/PsyD you may very well become an I/O Psychologist and achieve all of your career goals without needing a license. You might likewise find yourself a home in academia, again, no license necessary. Even a good number of clinical positions in the public sector don't require a license. I just encountered a job posting the other day for an "Associate Psychologist" with a state agency. Masters required, PhD/PsyD preferred, two years of clinical work (internships acceptable) required. No license necessary. $98k.

    It's very possible that you can have a career as a psychologist without ever being licensed. But it isn't really possible to have a career as a lawyer without being admitted to the bar. You might have a successful career in banking, finance, insurance or any number of fields. But you'll be a finance professional with a law degree rather than actually working as a lawyer. Not the same situation with psychology.
     
  13. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    yahyah. Some of that may be true but you would think that schools with good records would want to use it just as a marketing tool.
     
  14. Tireman 44444

    Tireman 44444 Well-Known Member

    Well, if you were going on law schools in North Carolina.....North Carolina Central University Law School is in Durham, North Carolina and Campbell Law School is in Buies Creek, North Carolina. I thought that is what you were referring to.....
     
  15. Gerkster

    Gerkster New Member

    Actually Campbell U has moved its law school to Raleigh. Not trying to nitpick :wink1:
     
  16. Tireman 44444

    Tireman 44444 Well-Known Member

    You are correct sir. Sorry. They moved after I left in 1998
     
  17. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    One of the reasons why the New England School of Law (or New England Law as they now call themselves) has such a good bar passing percentage is because they start preparing students for the bar exam in their final year of the program. They like to say (unofficially) that they're a law and a lawyer school.
     
  18. TomE

    TomE New Member

    I was trying to focus more on, for lack of a better term, the more "esteemed" law schools in the state. I probably should have included Campbell, but NCCU isn't really orders of magnitude better than Charlotte so I'm not sure how much competition NCCU is giving Charlotte grads (at least relative to the other schools mentioned).

    However, definitely see your point here!
     
  19. Tireman 44444

    Tireman 44444 Well-Known Member

    Give NCCU time. They have moved up substantially since the 1990's. They serve a population that many "elite" law schools do not. I do see your point as well.
     
  20. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    An interesting and important distinction, which carries over into other areas. It has been said of the two leading exam preparation services, Kaplan and Princeton, that one teaches the subject matter and the other teaches one how to pass the exams. (My wife got a very respectable 160 (out of 170) on the quantitative reasoning portion of the Graduate Record Exam. Then she took the Princeton weekend prep course, did it again, and got 169 (out of 170). But she's not the family champion. Our eldest daughter did it the same day and got 170/170.)
     

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